“Hence the tube-tying,” I said breathlessly as another contraction began.
“Yes, hence the…are you contracting again?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“All right, you have to say something when they start; I’m trying to time you.”
“Does it really matter?” I asked impatiently.
“Yes, it matters,” she snapped. “You are not having these babies in my garden like some kind of feral cat, Shelley.”
I wanted to shout at her, but my voice was stolen by the invisible band tightening around my diaphragm.
“Contraction,” I croaked.
“Three minutes, to the second. Nine to go, then we get in the car.”
Every time she talked about going to the hospital, I started to sweat. I didn’t have nearly the same aversion to doctors that Jenna had, but the thought of doing something so dramatically personal in front of a room full of people was giving me something close to stage fright. Worse than stage fright. It was like being in a quiz show on national TV naked. I wasn’t ready for this, not by a long shot.
Which was why, when my water broke during contraction number six, I didn’t say anything. I wanted those last nine minutes of freedom, and I knew Mom would cut my time short if she knew. A pinkish-silvery trail followed me down the path, and I imagined that I was a snail. It’s not a belly; it’s my beautiful shell.
“I think maybe I’m losing my mind,” I told Mom.
“Why do you say that?” she asked sharply. “Do you know your name? Your address?”
“What? Yes, of course. My mind is just going to weird places, that’s all. The way it does when I get into a painting trance.”
“Yep, time to go. Come on, honey, let’s grab your bag and get to the car.”
“What about Jenna?”
“She’ll figure it out; she knows what hospital we’re going to.”
“Okay, okay, don’t rush—” A contraction cut me off, powerful enough to send me to my knees again.
“Damn it, I knew I should have made you leave sooner. Jenna was a quick labor, too. Can you stand?”
I shook my head.
“All right, breathe, it’s going to be okay. Let me know when it passes.”
I caught my breath in a rush, and stood as quickly as I could without using my abs.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Did the contractions stop?” Jenna was here, yelling from the back door.
“Nope! They’re picking up speed. Help me get her to the car.”
“God, why are you guys still here? Jeez, Shelley, you look like you’re about to ascend to another plane of existence or something. Why did you let her wait so long, Mother?”
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me. She’s way bigger than me and she has pregnant lady super strength—you think I was going to fight her? I tried to talk her into going, but she was feeling restless.”
“Of course she’s feeling restless; she’s got two people trying to crawl out of her! All right Shelley, back seat. Shelley? Earth to Shelley.”
“I’m in the back seat. What do you want?” I grumbled absently.
“Reassurance that you’re still with us,” Jenna said briskly. “Now, we…oh for heaven’s sake, where did Mom go?”
“I’ve got the bags! We can go now.”
“Is there anything in there that she’s going to need before the babies are born?”
“What? I don’t think so. Why, does she need something now? What do you need, honey?”
I closed my eyes and lay my head down on the cool seat. Curling up like this felt exactly right. I could almost sleep through the contractions in this position.
“A doctor, Mother—she needs a doctor. Buckle up.”
Jenna took off like a bat out of hell, pressing me hard into the back of the seat. The pressure was answered by my abdomen.
By the time we got to the hospital, the pressure had become rolling waves of pain. Mom had stopped calling out the minutes between, because there weren’t any. The second one contraction subsided, another one began. I’m not sure how I made it into the hospital room, but before I knew it, Dr. Snow was lifting my legs into stirrups.
“When did the contractions begin?” she asked.
I had no concept of time at that point, and was endlessly grateful that my mother was there.
“About an hour and a half ago,” Mom said.
“Shelley? Were there any contractions before that?” Dr. Snow asked.
I shook my head wordlessly.
“Good grief, you’re going to be a quick one, aren’t you? Well, just do me a favor and try to maintain control; we don’t want a traffic jam up in there. Speaking of which…”
She lay the bed flat—which was incredibly uncomfortable—and poked around my belly. It felt as if she were probing clear back to my spine, and a strangled scream burst from my throat as another contraction hit.
“All right, looks like they’re lined up and ready to go. As long as nobody gets a cord wrapped around anybody else, we’re looking good for a vaginal delivery. Yay! Trust me, it’s better that way. Your lady parts bounce back a lot faster than cutting your tummy open. Besides, I already did a C-section today. Too much of the same dulls your edge, you know?”
“Do you always talk this much?” my mother asked exasperatedly.
That made me laugh in spite of my pain, which triggered another contraction.
“I tend to ramble when I get excited—forgive me. I’ll let you do what you need to do, dear. As long as you keep those monitors on, you can get up and walk around or dance or squat or whatever you feel you need to do. Just stay close to the call button, don’t go anywhere alone, and keep those monitors on! I’ll be back to check on you in half an hour.”
I had never been more relieved to hear anything in my entire life. My greatest fear had been to be strapped to the table, unable to move around while these babies tried to squeeze through. Awkward with my constantly changing center of gravity, I fumbled my way out of bed.
“Music,” I gasped at Jenna.
“Your usual?”
“Dance. Latin pop.”
She nodded and opened the music app on her phone.
Moments later, music filled the room, and my body locked on to the rhythm as if it had been waiting for guidance. A primal dance moved through me, separate from my consciousness, connected to the music and the needs of my labor. I felt the larger twin settle low between my hips, and I rocked around the pressure, coaxing the baby into position.
I spent the next three hours like that. Dancing, then back on the bed so Dr. Snow could check my progress. Back onto the floor to work out the kinks. Up on the bed. Back to the floor. Then, at the end of the third hour, a hundred things happened at once.
Jenna smashed the call button. The monitor began to beep frantically. Nurses flooded the room, followed by Dr. Snow, who had a sandwich in one hand. I was herded onto the bed by people who were all talking at once, and I couldn’t tell which instructions were directed at me. I found myself lying on my side, holding my knees to my chest; then, I heard nothing but white noise and the sounds of my own guttural screams.
“First baby is a boy! Oh, patience second baby, let me get your brother out of the way…all right, I guess we’re just not going to let Dr. Snow snip anything yet, are we? There you go, good job. One more big push for me, Shelley, whenever you’re ready. Good girl! And, another good girl! Baby number two has arrived.
“Now, if you’ll just…okay, I guess we’re just doing everything at once, aren’t we? Better than waiting around, I suppose. There’s one…and two! All right, did we miss anything? No? Everything intact? Yes? Excellent.”
Empty. I felt as if my ribcage and my hips belonged to two different people, separated by an eternal void. I detached from reality entirely, floating through the room. I could feel the turn of the earth and taste the vibrations of sound. The world was unrecognizable, and I was the universe.
Then, I was on my back, and a nurse was pressi
ng her fists into my belly. I heard her voice as an ethereal echo, but couldn’t interpret the words. They were just noises, senseless noises floating through the void. Another nurse joined her, and then there were four fists on my belly. Snow was doing something between my legs. It felt sharp, but it was over quickly.
The pain of the nurses’ fists finally grew intense enough to cut through my haze. I snapped back into the moment just in time to feel a contraction begin.
“There we go,” a nurse sighed as she shook out her hands. “Thought we were going to lose you for a second there, dear. I’ve never seen blood pressure drop so fast.”
I blinked, then ground my teeth as I contracted again. Now that I didn’t have the babies inside to press against, the contractions felt like hell.
“Why is this still happening?” I asked tearfully.
“Your uterus needs to shrink and cut off the blood flow. Without the placentas, you’re just bleeding. There’s one surefire way to…here we are.” The nurse took one of the babies from a different nurse and placed him on my chest.
“Your son,” she said warmly. “The sooner you breastfeed, the better. Speeds up the healing process.”
“And…your daughter,” Dr. Snow said as she placed the other baby on the other side of my chest. “Two for the price of one very intense labor.”
Stunned, I gazed down at the babies in my arms. They were absolutely beautiful—tiny and soft and perfect. I guided them to my breasts, hoping they would know what to do. I certainly didn’t.
My son did; he opened his tiny mouth and rooted around with his little button nose until he found what he wanted. The strength of his pull startled me. It was so different from anything I’d ever experienced that I didn’t quite know how to react.
My daughter wasn’t quite so active. She moved her mouth and head, but she seemed to be so tired. I could relate. A woman in purple scrubs came into the room a few moments later to help my little girl get started. She introduced herself, but I couldn’t pay attention. I was completely absorbed in my babies, head over heels in love.
“What are you going to name them?” Jenna asked as she petted my son’s fuzzy head.
Her touch caught his attention and his eyes opened for the first time. I gasped as tears welled up, choking me. The sound startled my daughter, who opened her eyes to look at me. It was a double heartbreak; they both had Miles’ eyes. I swallowed hard, but it didn’t stop the tears from flowing.
“He should have been here,” I said sadly as I gazed down at her. “You deserved to have him here.”
Jenna rubbed my shoulder, then sat down beside my mother. I kissed each baby in turn, careful not to break their latch. My tears splashed down onto their beautiful faces, which only made me cry harder.
“Don’t worry, my loves,” I whispered fiercely. “I’ll love you more than two parents ever could. I’ll love you so much you’ll never even miss his presence. From this moment on, everything I do is for you. You’re my whole world.”
My heart shattered, only to melt back together when I moved my son to my shoulder and he nuzzled my neck. It shattered again when I looked into my baby girl’s eyes, then melted once more when she curled up between my breasts and fell asleep.
In that moment, I knew that this was the shape of my life, now. From now until my heart forgot him, I would spend my life shattering and melting in undulating waves, like contractions in my broken soul.
Chapter 8
Shelley
Two Years Later
Just as I had on their first birthday, I awoke with the memory of their birth fresh in my mind. I wondered if it would be that way for the rest of my life, and decided that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
I had barely rubbed the sleep from my eyes when my door flew open and Vincent fell flat on his face. He looked up at me with a grin, his wild blond curls falling over his chubby little face.
“Mama!” he squealed, pushing himself up and running across the room to slam headlong into my mattress.
“Come here before you concuss yourself,” I laughed. I scooped him up and planted a raspberry on his belly, making him squeal again.
“Mama! Mama, up!” Frida called from the nursery.
“Did you abandon your sister?” I asked Vincent in a playfully shocked tone.
He giggled maniacally, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him. Tossing him over my shoulder, I shuffled around the corner in my tattered pajamas to find Frida scowling from her crib. Smaller and less athletic than her brother, my daughter frequently found herself stuck in place while Vincent moved with terrifying freedom through the world.
“Up! Up! Up!” Frida bounced on her toes with her little arms waving in the air. I scooped her up into my free arm and kissed her soundly on the forehead. Her strawberry-blond curls tickled my nose, making me sneeze.
Both kids thought it was absolutely hilarious. Their shrieking laughter roused my mom, who trudged blearily out of her room, wrapped in the same fuzzy pink bathrobe that she had worn when I was little.
“Didn’t I buy you a new robe last Christmas?” I asked, glancing pointedly at the threadbare waist and frayed hem.
“You did,” she said through a yawn. “But I like this one. It’s all broken-in already.”
“Definitely broken,” I teased.
She made a face at me and took Vincent from my arms before he climbed clear over my shoulder to tumble down the stairs. Coffee and fruit were on the menu for me, cheerios and apple juice for the twins, and Mom would eventually work her way around to an English muffin. It was a morning routine I enjoyed, because it gave me a solid twenty minutes in the morning when I didn’t have to decide anything.
“Ready for today?” Mom asked me.
“Ready to entertain a dozen toddlers and their parents? Not even,” I laughed. “I just hope Jenna gets here before the horde arrives.”
“Oh, it’ll be easy. Easier than all the babysitting you do. At least their parents will be here.”
“Babysitting gives me two, three extra kids at a time. A birthday party…”
“Birday?” Vincent asked, his sharp little eyes locking onto mine.
“Yeah, buddy, it’s your birthday today! Your friends are all coming over, and you’re going to get cake and presents.”
He stopped listening halfway through my sentence, distracted by a stray cheerio. I shrugged and sipped my coffee.
“Baby parties aren’t really for the babies anyway,” Mom whispered. “We parents just like inflicting the chaos on ourselves. It makes the rest of the year seem easy in comparison.”
I grinned at her assessment of the situation.
As the coffee swirled around my brain, activating all of my to-do lists, it was like the whole world snapped into focus. Good, I thought. If I can just maintain this level of focus until three, maybe we’ll all survive the party.
“I need to finish up that dress for Sasha. Can you handle the twins for an hour?”
“You need to do that now? We still have to get the place ready for the party!” Mom slathered strawberry jam on her muffin with excessive force, ripping through the delicate little bread pockets.
“She wants to take it home with her today after the party. If I don’t do it now, I’m not going to have another chance. It’s only, what, seven thirty? We’ll have time to set up.”
“If you say so,” Mom sighed. “Don’t get caught up in one of your artistic fevers, or we’ll never get it done in time.”
“I won’t, I promise. You two be good for Gran, I’ll be back in a little bit.”
I inhaled deeply as I stepped into the garage. Art permeated the very air in here, as the scents of ink and emulsifier clung to everything, accented by the dusty aroma of thrift store fabric. Sasha’s long sun dress hung on the center rolling rack, one of six garments that I was in the middle of making. Complex designs danced across the clothes in various stages of completion, and Sasha’s had just one part left before it was finished.
I examined my w
ork from the previous few days. Green vines snaked up the dress from the hem, accented by little blue curls. Bright yellow dots swept across the tops of the vines, the base for the magenta blossoms which still needed doing.
I slid the dress over the repurposed ironing board until the yellow dots were centered exactly where I needed them. Leaving it, I moved to the dark room that my Mom—after several weeks of resisting—had finally let me build in one corner of the garage. As I turned on the light, the deep red glow warmed my creative juices. In this space, there were no broken hearts, no fatherless children, no sadness at all. There was only art.
I burned the silhouette onto the screen, meditating in my quiet place while it cured. Instinct—developed through nearly two years of careful honing—told me when to take the image out from under the lamp. Rinsing the screen brought another wave of calm; I was centered, secure.
I would never tell my mother, but my procrastination on this dress had been deliberate. If I was going to make it through this day with my sanity intact, I needed this time in this place. My well of patience was only filled by the deep silence and slow, firm, routine of creation.
Ink bled through the screen, penetrating the thin fabric of the dress below. Little magenta petals brought the design to life, creating a field of impressionistic flowers across the skirt. They would dance when she twirled and wave when she walked, turning her every movement into a breeze. I took my time with it, making sure I got it just right; I wanted this to be perfect. Sasha was the mom all the other moms looked to for shopping advice, and I wanted her tongue wagging in my favor.
I sighed happily as I finished the last flower, then checked the time. Eight forty-five. Mom would forgive the extra few minutes as long as I busted my butt to set up for the party.
I turned on my little second-hand oven and let it preheat while I cleaned up. The screen took a chemical bath to remove the stencil, and the squeegee was scrubbed within an inch of its life. Even the cleanup routine was a bit meditative.
Second Chance Twins Page 6
